Saturday, April 9, 2011

Director Sidney Lumet, who started his career in television but earned four Oscar nominations for directing, including for his first feature film 12 Angry Men, died earlier today at the age of 86. The other three Best Director nominations were for Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict; Lumet also picked up a nomination for writing along the way. (Lumet never won a competitive Oscar but was eventually awarded a lifetime achievement award.) Lumet's long career included a lot of movies with a political or cultural conscience. In addition to the four mentioned above, Lumet also directed the nuclear weapons drama Fail-Safe, and the story of whistleblower-cop Serpico.

TCM hasn't announced any sort of programming changes in Lumet's honor. If they do I'll mention it here.